October, 1917 – Lena Garson, 19 years old, daughter of an old-fashioned banker and his wife, thinks of herself as a very well-brought up young lady leading a quiet life with a predicable future. When Clarence Muldoon, son of the richest man in town, begins to court her, Lena feels her life is now going in the direction her parents want for her. Jack Manning, born on the wrong side of the tracks but determined to make a better life for himself and his widowed mother, sees Lena as part of that life. All he has to do is convince Lena that love and laughter are worth much more than all the money Clarence Muldoon has to offer.

Harry Angel, a down-and-out fifties Brooklyn gumshoe, takes us on a journey of violence and murder that canvasses the desperate streets of Harlem, smoke-filled jazz clubs of New Orleans, and ultimately to voodoo rituals in the sweltering swamps of Louisiana. "Angel Heart"… A truly unsettling film experience.

Scoring Her Heart is sexy and fun contemporary romance between a cocky football player and the quirky librarian who catches his eye. Dallas Drake has a big salary and an even bigger…ego…and he’s not afraid to use either of them to his advantage. As infamous as he is attractive, Dallas has all the equipment necessary to bring home the win. The first time I met him, I was in handcuffs. The second, he saved me when I fell off a ladder. Now? Now we’re working together to plan a charity event. I may not be interested in what Dallas has to offer, but as the game goes on, I’m becoming more open to his passes. Is he looking for the win, or just determined to score?

As an Air Force medic, Bree Marks saw the worst the War on Terror had to dish out. Now a physical therapist, she uses her experience to help other veterans heal from their physical wounds; while she battles her own emotional damage.&#xa0; Blaming himself for his best friend’s suicide, former Army Ranger Jase Larken, retreated from life. To honor his best friend’s memory and assuage his guilt, he started an outdoor adventure company to help veterans with PTSD. &#xa0; Bree had better things to do than catch her cheating fiancé in bed with another woman. Jase is something better – for a night at least. For the first time in years, Jase wanted more. When he finds her again, he doesn’t give her another chance to run. Jase’s possessiveness grates on Bree’s independent nature. She’s dealt with her fair share of alpha-male, door kickers and doesn’t need one telling her what to do now. But as a new danger emerges, Bree and Jase must face their pasts, before someone's obsession with Bree destroys any chance they have of a future.

[[tmz:video id=”0_czh0gfy7″]] UCLA hoops star Shareef O’Neal says, despite being sidelined this season with a heart issue, he’s still 100% committed to his dream of going to the NBA … but admits he also has FASHION on the brain. We broke the…

Heart of Darkness (1899) is a short novel by Polish novelist Joseph Conrad, written as a frame narrative, about Charles Marlow’s life as an ivory transporter down the Congo River in Central Africa. The river is “a mighty big river, that you could see on the map, resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail lost in the depths of the land”. In the course of his travel in central Africa, Marlow becomes obsessed with Mr. Kurtz.

***USA Today Bestselling Author*** Sara Carson is a 30-something widow with a busy life. Two fun-loving best friends, a caring mom who needs her, and a thriving sweet shop. What more could a woman want? But when the ancient plumbing in her shop springs a leak and a gorgeous, dark-eyed stranger rushes to her rescue, hilarity unfolds—and Sara quickly sees exactly what she’s been missing. Something most peculiar draws Landon Richards to Ocean City, Maryland—and to the lovely Sara. This woman touches his heart like no other, and the two of them explore the heady attraction that pulses between them. But haunting dreams have a way of encroaching on reality, and the strange phenomenon that brings these two together will also threaten to tear them apart. This is the first book in the Ocean City Boardwalk Series, where life for three enterprising women, Sara, Heather, and Cathy, isn’t just fun in the sun—love is waiting on those sandy shores!

NY Giants star Janoris Jenkins says the man who was killed at his New Jersey home was a “good friend” — and it “hurts my heart to know that he’s passed.” TMZ Sports broke the story … officials found a dead body in Jenkins’ basement on June 26. The…

If losing your hair early and going gray isn’t enough of a downer, studies have also found that premature balding may be linked to increased risk of prostate cancer—and that all of those gray hairs may mean that your life is too stressful.

Infamous UK celebrity playboy, Cameron "Heartbreak" Hunter is everything bridal fashion designer, Evangeline Parks knows she should avoid. However, when fate intervenes and the gorgeous whisky tycoon is her mystery date for her best friend Kate's wedding in Scotland, Evie won't relent to his charm. Smart enough to know that a man like Cameron only brings heartache and tears, she's determined to avoid becoming another notch on his belt–no matter how incredibly attracted to him she is.&#xa0; Cameron Hunter has never encountered a woman who dismisses him upon sight–until he meets Evie. The more the opinionated beauty tries to steer clear of him, the more desirable he finds her. But when Cameron's hidden past is discovered, obstacles pile up as he sets out to win Evie and prove that he is far more than just tabloid fodder. Has the bad boy billionaire finally found the one to end the hunt for his heart?&#xa0; THE HEARTTHROB SERIES: Each book in the series is a standalone. Book 1: Heart Raider (Nick and Veronique) Book 2: Heart Melter (Ian and Natasha) Book 3: Heart Tamer (Alec and Kate) Book 4: Heart Hunter (Cameron and Evie) Book 5: Heart Tempter (Leo and Teddy)

Hiding in plain sight just got complicated… Lauren Taylor and her young son have fled back to her hometown to escape fame’s cruel spotlight, and all she wants to do is start over. No press, no pictures, no problem. Until Nate Fraser, a sexy photojournalist, moves in next door. Resisting his kisses and keeping her secrets soon become the hardest thing she’s ever done. Nate’s got one foot out the door and one last assignment before he resumes his nomadic lifestyle, camera in hand. His every instinct screams that his beautiful but unwelcoming neighbour is hiding something. He couldn’t care less when it’s difficult enough to keep his eyes—and lips—off of her. No matter how much Nate attempts to keep his heart out of reach, he’s drawn into her life. But a guy like him can never have what he wants most. Can he? HIDE YOUR HEART is the first story in Tracey Alvarez’s Bounty Bay series, set against the stunning backdrop of Aotearoa, New Zealand. If you like heartwarming, sweet and sexy small town romances, you’ll love sharing the journey with these authentic men and women struggling to find their special someone. Welcome to Bounty Bay, where the reward of true love is a price only some are willing to pay. Download your copy of Hide Your Heart today and uncover the secret lives and hidden passions simmering in New Zealand’s sultry, subtropical Far North. Intended for mature 18+ aged readers who enjoy their feel good romance on the sensual side. Praise for the Bounty Bay series! "Reading a book by Tracey Alvarez is like taking a mini vacation to my imagined little happy place in New Zealand." ~ Spellbound Book Reviews "Tracey now is included among some of my fav authors from the Southern Hemisphere. Rosalind James and Natalie Gayle fans will love Tracey's books." ~ Retailer review "Tracey Alvarez has written a finely crafted, well written romance. Sexy and delightful and full of family values." ~The Book Date "Her writing style will keep you hanging on to every word and feeling the characters’ heartbreak right along with them." ~ Rachel Lawrence Books Don’t miss any of the Bounty Bay books! Book 1: Hide Your Heart. Featuring Lauren and Nate. Book 2: Know Your Heart. Featuring Savannah and Glen. Book 3: Teach Your Heart. Featuring Gracie and Owen. Book 4: Mend Your Heart. Featuring Natalie and Isaac. Coming 2017. Book 5: Break Your Heart. Featuring Vanessa and Sam. Coming 2017.

High School art teacher Sophie Smith is usually the most honest of women. But when her dearest friend and mentor asks her to be her stand-in on a two-week vacation at an Amalfi Coast luxury resort, she won’t let her down… even if it means posing as a rich, pampered socialite. As it turns out, Sophie could get used to this, especially handsome, enigmatic gardener Declan Muldoon who’s strangely more thrilling than any of the billionaires buzzing around. She ends up falling for him—hard. Then Sophie discovers she’s not the only one pretending. Declan’s gardener gig is temporary. He’s actually the black sheep of a very wealthy, powerful family, a man who appears to be in need of an heiress. An heiress exactly like Sophie is pretending to be…&#xa0; Book 1: The Billionaire's Pleasure by Katherine Garbera&#xa0; Book 2: The Billionaire's Touch by Mimi Wells&#xa0; Book 3: The Billionaire's Bride by Nancy Robards Thompson&#xa0; Book 4: The Billionaire's Heart by Kathleen O'Brien&#xa0; Book 5: The Billionaire's Lover by Eve Gaddy&#xa0;

Meghan Markle’s father will not be walking her down the aisle Saturday … he isn’t going to the wedding at all because of the fallout over selling photos of himself … TMZ has learned. Thomas Markle tells TMZ, he meant no harm to Meghan or the Royal…

[[tmz:video id=”0_5ecuigt5″]] Heidi Klum can’t pass up a good beat when she hears one — even if it’s in the middle of a shopping trip … girl’s just gotta dance. We got Heidi Tuesday night walking up Melrose Ave. in WeHo, where she stumbled across a…

After suffering a “massive heart attack” in February, Kevin Smith has been eating clean. To help motivate himself when his new diet gets tough, the comedian shared a set of before and after snapshots, capturing his weight loss progress from 2008 to today. See Kevin’s jaw-dropping transformation!

After a long battle with a heart condition, Queen Latifah’s beloved mother, Rita Owens, has passed away. Read the actress’ touching tribute to Rita, whom she calls “a bright light” and “certainly the love of my life.”

Wale caught everyone off guard when he dropped his EP It’s Complicatedlast week and today he’s coming through with a visual in support of his guerilla tactic style album.
In “Staying Power” the free agent rapper takes it back to his DC grounds where he picks up a thick young lady at the airport and takes her for a ride around town.

Q-Tip meanwhile links up with Demi Lovato to remake the 70’s classic “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” whose clip features a party where everyone in attendance is out loud and proud.

Check out the rest of today’s drops including work from DJ Stevie J featuring Future, E-40 and B-Legit featuring P-Lo, and more.

Meet Rory and Alfie – the third of three hot couples from Kris Pearson’s New Zealand Heartlands Series. Shy Kiwi heiress Alfrieda Hamlin is reduced to shocked silence when her hateful grandfather announces she’s to marry within a month – to a man she’s never met. Then she yells blue murder because there’s no way she’ll give her body to a stranger, or have her expected freedom and inheritance stolen away. Exiled from his family for half his life, hard-living cowboy Rory Morrissey has been offered a deal: quit Texas, return to his birthplace, and embark on the delicate mission of convincing Alfie to take him as her husband. This will earn him a fresh start, respectability, and the chance of one hell of a farm. Rory has murder in his background and nothing to lose by accepting the challenge. The girl could be bearable. Perhaps they can outwit the old man and split things amicably? Or maybe hell will freeze over first… Alfie might be shy but she’s no pushover. When she learns about the succession deal being hatched between her autocratic grandfather and the handsome Texan stud, she rebels. With only one month to outwit the scheming duo, she throws caution to the wind and snuggles up to the man she’s been ordered to marry. After all, she needs to know her enemy if she expects to beat him at his own game. Warning: Contains one hunky cowboy determined to ride down his heiress, hog-tie her, and bundle her into his bed. COWBOY WANTS HER HEART is the third in my Heartlands trilogy. Set in the spectacular rural scenery of New Zealand, these novels take you to faraway places where real men and women seek lasting love – sometimes against daunting odds. If you enjoy romance that leaps off the page – funny, furious and feel-good – then download this sizzling hot story now. Be sure to also read MELTING HIS HEART and CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY HEARTS. All my books can be read as stand-alones, and there are no cliff-hangers. The Heartlands books are best read as shown here, but you can read the Wellington stories in any order. If you would like to know when my next book is published, please go to my website krispearson.com and sign up for my newsletter. Thank you for your wonderful support! Contemporary romances by Kris Pearson: Currently being written – The Scarlet Bay Series The Heartlands Series: 1. MELTING HIS HEART (Kate and Matthew) 2. CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY HEARTS (Ellie and Tony) 3. COWBOY WANTS HER HEART (Alfie and Rory) The Wellington Series: 1. THE BOAT BUILDER’S BED (Sophie and Rafe) 2. SEDUCTION ON THE CARDS (Kerri and Alex) 3. RESISTING NICK (Sammie and Nick) 4. OUT OF BOUNDS (Jetta and Anton) 5. THE WRONG SISTER (Fiona and Christian) 6. RAVISHING ROSE (Francesca and Jake) 7. HOT FOR YOU (Melanie and Cody) Sheikhs of Al Sounam Series: 1. TAKEN BY THE SHEIKH (Laurel and Rafiq) 2. DESIRED BY THE SHEIKH (Stacy and Akil)

Dr. Gabe Allen has a rule about dating colleagues but when he meets ER nurse Larissa Brockman he's tempted to break his vow. Larissa's faith draws him back to the church he'd left behind, but when their lives are on the line Gabe discovers that Larissa is the one who needs to learn about the true meaning of forgiveness. And only Gabe can help heal her heart. Enjoy more stories in the Crystal Lake Series: 1. Healing Her Heart 2. A Soldier’s Promise 3. Coming Home 4. Worth the Wait 5. Christmas Reunion 6. Second Chance

Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman), head of the Open Spaces Coalition, has been experiencing an alarming series of coincidences that have lead him to fall under the influence of nihilistic competitor Brad Stand (Jude Law); an executive climbing the corporate ladder at Huckabees – a popular chain of retail superstores. With the help of two Existential Detectives, Bernard and Vivian Jaffe (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin), Albert examines his life, his relationships, and his conflict with Brad.

When the landlady from hell becomes the one woman he can’t live without… Kicked off a movie set, actress Savannah Payne flees to her vacation house in Bounty Bay to prepare for the audition of a lifetime. Only a stubborn, sexy lawyer is currently renting it and he won’t budge an inch. Not even when she uses every weapon in her arsenal to drive him out of his mind. But all’s fair in love and war, including his kisses that make her want to surrender. Glen Cooper needs a distraction-free month to finish writing his first novel and he’s found the perfect spot. As a lawyer he knows his legal rights, and the self-absorbed woman who doesn’t remember the night he once saved her won’t weaken his resolve. Too bad he’s fighting a battle of attraction that he just can’t win. With Savannah returning soon to Hollywood, could falling in love could be the truce needed for her to stay? KNOW YOUR HEART is the second story in Tracey Alvarez’s Bounty Bay series, set against the stunning backdrop of Aotearoa, New Zealand. If you like heartwarming, sexy and sweet small-town romances, you’ll love sharing the journey with these authentic men and women struggling to find their special someone. Welcome to Bounty Bay, where the reward of true love is a price only some are willing to pay. Download your copy of Know Your Heart today and uncover the secret lives and hidden passions simmering in New Zealand’s sultry, subtropical Far North. Intended for mature 18+ aged readers who enjoy their feel good romance on the sensual side. Praise for the Bounty Bay series! "Reading a book by Tracey Alvarez is like taking a mini vacation to my imagined little happy place in New Zealand." ~ Spellbound Book Reviews "Tracey now is included among some of my fav authors from the Southern Hemisphere. Rosalind James and Natalie Gayle fans will love Tracey's books." ~ Retailer review "Tracey Alvarez has written a finely crafted, well written romance. Sexy and delightful and full of family values." ~The Book Date "Her writing style will keep you hanging on to every word and feeling the characters’ heartbreak right along with them." ~ Rachel Lawrence Books Don’t miss any of the Bounty Bay books! Book 1: Hide Your Heart. Featuring Lauren and Nate. Book 2: Know Your Heart. Featuring Savannah and Glen. Book 3: Teach Your Heart. Featuring Gracie and Owen. Book 4: Mend Your Heart. Featuring Natalie and Isaac. Coming 2017. Book 5: Break My Heart. Featuring Vanessa and Sam. Coming 2017.

In the winter of 1820, the New England whaling ship Essex was assaulted by something no one could believe: a whale of mammoth size and will, and an almost human sense of vengeance. The real-life maritime disaster would inspire Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. But that told only half the story. "In the Heart of the Sea" reveals the encounter's harrowing aftermath, as the ship's surviving crew is pushed to their limits and forced to do the unthinkable to stay alive. Braving storms, starvation, panic and despair, the men will call into question their deepest beliefs, from the value of their lives to the morality of their trade, as their captain searches for direction on the open sea and his first mate still seeks to bring the great whale down.

One night to be someone else. Mila Day had plans. When her lover demands she give up her dreams to be a trophy wife, she leaves. Wanting to forget the wasted years, she ends up at a party in the next state, craving one wild night of abandon. It was exactly what she wanted. No strings. No names. But it’s not exactly what she gets. Six years later, she’s a happy high school teacher with a beautiful daughter she will always Cherish. No regrets. Kyle Blake is a fireman who has been burned. He’s happy alone until he hears joyous laughter next door. He finds it hard to resist Mila, and her little girl, who steal his heart. When pieces of her past surface, she’ll question everything. Can they survive the truth?

CLOSE TO HIS HEART: Margherita Missoni, Christopher Bailey, Etro, Issey Miyake, Giles Deacon, Gill Button, Sandra Choi for Jimmy Choo, Stephen Jones, Stephen Webster, Steven Tai, David Downton, Barnaba Fornasetti, Damien Hirst and Tom Dixon are among the designers and brands taking part in a campaign to raise awareness of heart disease. British photographer Rankin and his creative agency The Full Service initiated the campaign to mark World Heart Day on Friday.
Rankin gave contributors a brief to design their own heart and to post their creations on social channels with the hashtag #heartforaheart.
“My father died from a heart attack. It would have been good to have him around and that might have been possible with a better understanding of the heart and how people need to take care of it,” Rankin said. “Plus as a child I also had a heart condition. So I’m very aware of the importance of looking after your heart and the risks involved.
“The sole purpose of this campaign is to spread awareness. We just want people to know and understand the work that this charity does for people, the difficulties that sufferers have to go through and the way they can help.”

Love is such a wonderful thing in this world we live in but sometimes things don’t work out very well for everyone and you have to break up with that special someone because things aren’t working out and you have to move on. Dealing with this process before and after the breakup is very hard for everyone therefore today you will learn some good tips on how to deal with a bad break up after having invested your time in a significant other for so long in your life.Relationships:Dating Articles from EzineArticles.com

MADONNA's record-breaking REBEL HEART TOUR features 24 tracks performed around the world on her 10th global trek. Co-directed by Danny B. Tull and Nathan Rissman, this two hour spectacular is everything (and more) you'd expect from The Queen Of Pop. The tracklist spans Madonna's entire career, including songs from her chart-topping Rebel Heart album and classic fan favourites. Reimagined versions of some of her biggest hits make this the latest unmissable chapter in a lifetime of breathtaking creative achievements. The Rebel Heart Tour played arenas in 55 cities on 4 continents over 7 months, totalling 82 shows, plus the special "Tears Of A Clown" fan club show in Melbourne. The envelope-pushing performances and production drew over a million fans, making Madonna the highest grossing solo touring artist and top female solo artist of all time. "Unstoppable" New York Times "There's nobody else near her throne" Rolling Stone "A display of superstar invincibility" Financial Times

I’ve always had an infinite appetite for social relations, regardless of their nature. And although I’m quiet at first, as people get to know me, they quickly realize I’m quite talkative and happy to engage in stimulating conversation.XBIZ.com – Opinion

She’d come home to put her life back together. With a broken engagement behind her and a baby on the way, Maddie Adams needs a safe place to have her baby and heal her broken heart. Then she runs into Nick Ryan, her once-best friend and first love, and her life once again becomes entwined with his. And though the sparks between them are as strong as ever, she does her best to ignore them. Nick had betrayed her once, and she can’t risk it happening again. Not now when she has another life to consider. Nick Ryan grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Back then, the only person who’d believed in him was Maddie Adams, a girl with everything going for her. Then he’d messed up and lost her. Despite that, he’d achieved his dream of becoming a doctor and returned home to practice medicine. But he’d made other mistakes along the way, mistakes that had cost him his wife and left him with an angry teenage son. With Maddie back in town, he’s hoping for a second chance. Can he undo the damage he’s done to his son? Can he heal the old hurt between him and Maddie? And can they put together a new family, one based on love rather than obligation?

Holly Heart is back for season 13 and in the spirit of classic US season premieres, we put her against a rookie so she can squash her. The rookie is trapped on the mats and makes pathetic noises while she is finger fucked tirelessly. Holly shows no mercy and even makes the rookie quit before she can go 3 rounds. Loser is brutally humiliated and worships the winners body and feetUltimate Surrender Gallery Update

Holly Heart is back for season 13 and in the spirit of classic US season premieres, we put her against a rookie so she can squash her. The rookie is trapped on the mats and makes pathetic noises while she is finger fucked tirelessly. Holly shows no mercy and even makes the rookie quit before she can go 3 rounds. Loser is brutally humiliated and worships the winners body and feetUltimate Surrender Gallery Update

Holly Heart is back for season 13 and in the spirit of classic US season premieres, we put her against a rookie so she can squash her. The rookie is trapped on the mats and makes pathetic noises while she is finger fucked tirelessly. Holly shows no mercy and even makes the rookie quit before she can go 3 rounds. Loser is brutally humiliated and worships the winners body and feetUltimate Surrender Gallery Update

Holly Heart is back for season 13 and in the spirit of classic US season premieres, we put her against a rookie so she can squash her. The rookie is trapped on the mats and makes pathetic noises while she is finger fucked tirelessly. Holly shows no mercy and even makes the rookie quit before she can go 3 rounds. Loser is brutally humiliated and worships the winners body and feetUltimate Surrender Gallery Update

Home is more than a place . . . Breaking free from her structured life, Chloe English quits her high-powered job and moves across the country to work as an art teacher. The simple life is all she hoped it would be until her house burns down, leaving her homeless. When a handsome firefighter swoops in to save the day, she can’t believe her luck. He’s laid-back and unassuming, everything she’s looking for in a man—or so he seems. It turns out he’s as ambitious as her ex, comes with a family who could be more stifling than hers, and harbors dark secrets he may never be able to share. Orphaned as a teenager, Derek Sumner has found a place in his best friend’s family. However, the love and support of his surrogate parents and siblings can’t erase the grief and loss he struggles every Christmas to banish. But this year he meets the fun and sexy Chloe, whose optimism and sense of joy are incredibly contagious. Can she help him face his bleak past so they can forge a happy future?

Getting into my top choice sorority? Done. Dating one of the hottest guys in the biggest fraternity? Done. Failing out of College? Oops… When Libby Gentry&apos;s parents receive the letter that she&apos;s failed out of school, Libby is forced to pack her Prada bag and head to work for her great aunt in rural Louisiana. Nothing about tiny Elsbury, Louisiana entices her until she locks eyes with the southern charmer, Blaine Crabtree. Libby is used to getting what she wants and Blaine is no exception, but as the two grow closer, bigger problems arise. Libby doesn&apos;t know how much more pain her already paper-thin heart can take and when new opportunities in Chicago pop up she is presented with a difficult situation: wait for her redneck Romeo, or move on. Books in this series: My Paper Heart On Paper Wings A Paper Trail These Paper Walls

A Brave Heart: The Lizzie Velasquez Story is a documentary following the inspiring journey of 26-year-old, 58-pound Lizzie from cyber-bullying victim to anti-bullying activist. Born with a rare syndrome that prevents her from gaining weight, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Velasquez was first bullied as a child in school for looking different and, later online, as a teenager when she discovered a YouTube video labeling her "The World's Ugliest Woman." The film chronicles unheard stories and details of Lizzie's physical and emotional journey up to her multi-million viewed TEDx talk, and follows her pursuit from a motivational speaker to Capitol Hill as she lobbies for the first federal anti-bullying bill.

We may be in the middle of fashion month, a time when the fashion glitterati is typically consumed with designers, new models, and front-row celebs—but the topic at shows has been focused on one fashionable…

Ren Maddock wouldn&apos;t call herself a runaway, but when she&apos;s backed into a corner by a childhood she&apos;d rather forget, she&apos;s chosen flight every time. With her teenage sister in tow, Ren picks Three Rivers, Colorado and hopes that it will provide them with the quiet, simple life she&apos;s been looking for. She doesn&apos;t expect responding to a job ad will have her suddenly wanting to break her only hard and fast rule: never lay down roots. Dane Baylor already has his hands full running the family cattle operation when a tragic accident leaves him as his young nephew&apos;s legal guardian. Before long, he finds himself over his head and desperate not to betray the trust his brother put in him. He doesn&apos;t know how badly he needs Ren until she shows up and balances out not only his life but his heart. For the first time in years, Ren feels safe, and despite her best efforts, believing in the happy life she could have with the man who offers her the love she&apos;s never known. But when her past comes knocking, threatening her new family and her new life, she may have no choice but to fight for everything she holds dear. THE BAYLORS Runaway Heart (Dane Baylor &amp; Ren Maddock) Homecoming Heart (Noah Baylor &amp; Emma Pierce) Secondhand Heart (Finn Baylor &amp; Lily Jacobs) – AVAILABLE NOW! THE MONTGOMERYS Secret Heart (Nate Montgomery &amp; Layla Sullivan) — COMING 2015 Hearts of Three Rivers is a series with recurring characters throughout, however, each book may be read as a standalone or out of order with ease. Runaway Heart is a contemporary &apos;sweet Western heat&apos; novel — including cursing and open door bedroom scenes, but little frank language.

Strong-willed, successful and determined, Callan Matthews is the queen of organization, detail, and planning. Clay, her fun-loving husband of 13 years, refers to her as Ms. Business. Unfortunately, unbridled chaos runs amuck in the deep, dark places of her heart as she struggles to keep herself together. She contemplates how she ended up at a place in her life where Clay is tugging at the last few threads keeping her from completely unraveling. It isn&apos;t his ghastly snoring, his inability to pick up after himself or the tonal quality his belching repertoire is gaining on a daily basis that is pushing her toward the edge of a breakdown. It is a secret Callan refuses to reveal. Easy-going cowboy Clay Matthews is a respected college professor, a favorite among family and friends, and completely baffled by his wife. He thought he knew everything there was to know about this woman. Suddenly, she&apos;s turned into a mystifying female he barely understands. Clay would give just about anything to recapture the feelings they used to share, but Callan seems to want no part of it. Just when he decides to get to the root of the problem no matter the outcome, he discovers his wife has harbored a secret nearly too painful to bear. Will their love be strong enough to withstand a revelation that will rock the foundation of their marriage?

She’s a fortune-hunter. He’s nobody’s prey. Adam, Earl of Bexley, lives to work. His only relief is the sordid savagery of bare-knuckle boxing. Not women, and definitely not a disreputable, scheming woman who dances in secret with such passion… Caro Small is desperate to escape her selfish family. Her only chance is a good marriage, and she intends to marry Adam—whether he likes it or not. But the more she schemes to entrap him, the more she risks trapping her own heart. Adam won’t be caught by a fortune-hunter’s ambitious schemes. But the vulnerable, passionate woman underneath the plots might just bring him to his knees.

Dr. Letitia Morgan comes to Hartville, Colorado, in the late 1800s to follow her God-given calling to heal. Soon she becomes Hartville&apos;s ministering angel, reaching out to the children of the town drunk, and skillfully touching all who need her. But not everyone warms to the lovely new physician and Letty ruffles plenty of feathers when she takes on Hartville&apos;s thriving brothels. As she rescues first one then another young girl forced into the sordid trade, Letty becomes the target of some of the town&apos;s most powerful people. Eric Wagner, Hartville&apos;s newspaper editor, finds he got much more than he bargained for when he brought this female doctor to town. As Letty stirs more controversy with each passing day, he wonders if he can save the noble-minded doctor from herself. This is heart-warming and engaging fiction at its best, straight from the pen of a skilled storyteller.

It is time… An ancient book, a power untouched, and a heart unloved lead Keelin O&apos;Brien from her graduate studies in Boston to a small village on the coast of Southern Ireland. Determined to unearth the secrets lying hidden in the enchanted waters of the cove, Keelin has little time for a surly Irishman who infuriates her during the day and haunts her fantasies at night. Inexplicably drawn to the woman who has stepped from his dreams and into his world, Flynn fights a stubborn battle against his increasing attraction for Keelin. Forces unknown have better plans for the two. Only the secrets of the cove can show Keelin who she really is, the beauty of her mysterious power, and a love that will break the bounds of what she knows. From New York Times Bestselling author, Tricia O&apos;Malley, comes a new romance series set on the rocky shores of Ireland. Book 1: Wild Irish Roots (a prequel novella) Book 2: Wild Irish Heart (the first in the series) Book 3: Wild Irish Eyes Book 4: Wild Irish Soul Each book is a stand alone novel that can be read on its own.

R&B songstress Althea Heart hosted a listening party filled with industry heavy hitters to promote her new album “Controversy” at Cirque Daiquiri Bar & Grill in Midtown Atlanta, G.A. In grand fashion, hosted by fiancée’, Benzino, former cast member of Love & Hip Hop Atlanta and owner of the new popular celebrity restaurant in Atlanta, BENZINO’S CRAB TRAP, was there hyping the crowd and in strong support of his next in command.

In attendance were VIP guests, Debra Antney, Bonecrusher, Hurricane Chris, Big Kap, celebrity recording rap artists Suga Shane and Coo Coo Cal, the FleetDJ Coalition, the creator of The Source Magazine & Co-Founder of Hip Hop Weekly Dave Mays, representatives from the famous beer label Anheuser Busch, music executive Orville Hall, celebrity photographer Lorenzo Smith, and a host of celebrated media personalities such as Shannon James of Comcast’s Channel 22. The event was well attended and catered providing its VIP guests with food, drinks, and of course Althea’s sultry music.

Althea graced the star studded event with a fitted black backless dress that showed off just how stunning, classy, and sophisticated an expectant mother can be. As reported by media coordinator, Kenya Sampler and by all accounts, the listening party was a huge success! The listening party showcased and confirmed that Althea’s talent is undeniable. Stay tuned because there is much more to come from this amazing singer and mother-to-be.

Althea’s listening party was coordinated by @therealdavemays and publicist and media correspondent of Hip Hop Weekly Kay Harris (@kayharrispr) and sponsored by Armadale Vodka, Lime-a-Rita, Hip Hop Weekly Magazine, and AMS Music Entertainment.

On her wedding night, Sabrina will share the bridal suite with one of her brother’s best friends. Which one? She has no idea! Sabrina Fitzpatrick helped plan her dream wedding last year— for her brother and his wife . Now, she wants her own fairytale ceremony. She’s tired of waiting for commitment-phobe, Detective Luke Marino, to realize she’s been crazy about him since puberty. Consequently, when Luke’s billionaire friend asks her to marry him, she’s compelled to accept BJ Elliott’s proposal, especially after he suggests their impending marriage might induce his idiot pal to finally step forward. Unfortunately, a week later, adrenaline-junkie Luke risks his life again and ends up temporarily confined to a wheelchair. BJ would love to give Sabrina an unforgettable wedding night, but he fears she’ll never be happy with him if she doesn’t resolve her feelings for his buddy, first. Therefore, even knowing he could lose her, BJ persuades her to become Luke’s live-in nurse—offering her one last chance to convince the man she loves to take BJ’s place at the altar ( which BJ doubts his friend will ever do ). If nothing else, he hopes Love’em and Leave’em Luke can convince Sabrina he’ll make a lousy husband. Luke has two secrets not even his best friends know. The first is he aches for Sabrina with every fiber of his being. The second is he loves her enough to spare her the heartbreak that being his wife would undoubtedly entail. Much to Luke’s dismay, his resolve to resist his buddy’s fiancée is tested after Sabrina steps in as his nurse and starts prancing around in nothing but his threadbare T-shirt. If he surrenders to her seduction, it may destroy his relationship with BJ. And, worse still, if he gets a taste of loving Sabrina, how can he ever stand by and let her marry his friend?

A riverboat captain named Marlow receives a simple assignment: to float upriver, deep into the heart of the colonized Congo, and find a wayward ivory trader named Kurtz. Yet the job is much more than it seems. Life in the jungle has transformed Kurtz into a sick, dangerous, ambitious, and manipulative man, and the search to find him begins to weigh heavily on Marlow&apos;s soul.

Book I: The Billionaires Heart When you&apos;re a fresh new college graduate with a Master&apos;s Degree you consider completely useless, you realize pretty quickly that you need to find a job! That&apos;s the position Katelynn Burke finds herself in, and when she is hired on her very first job interview to be the Manager Trainee of a new store in town, she thinks life couldn&apos;t get any better. But then she meets the man who is going to train her: Nathanael Simmons, the only son of the founder of the company, and one of the most incredibly handsome, wealthy and lovable men she&apos;s ever seen in her life! How will she handle things when the relationship takes a turn towards the romantic? This is Katelynn&apos;s story, told in her own words.

Cara Devon has always suffered curiosity and impetuousness, but tangling with a serial killer might cure that. Permanently. London, 1861. Impoverished noble Cara has a simple mission after the strange death of her father – sell off his damned collection of priceless artifacts. Her plan goes awry when aristocratic beauties start dying of broken hearts, an eight inch long brass key hammered through their chests. A killer hunts amongst the nobility, searching for a regal beauty and an ancient Egyptian relic rumoured to hold the key to immortality. Her Majesty&apos;s Enforcers are in pursuit of the murderer and they see a connection between the gruesome deaths and Cara. So does she, somewhere in London her father hid Nefertiti&apos;s Heart, a fist sized diamond with strange mechanical workings. Adding further complication to her life, notorious crime lord, Viscount Nathaniel Lyons is relentless in his desire to lay his hands on Cara and the priceless artifact. If only she could figure out his motive. Self-preservation fuels Cara&apos;s search for the gem. In a society where everyone wears a mask to hide their true intent, she needs to figure out who to trust, before she makes a fatal mistake.

Nurse and avid backpacker Aimee Donovan is offered the opportunity of a lifetime. She encounters a patient who tells her he can send her two hundred years into the past to spend three months in the rugged Yellowstone wilderness at the dawn of the mountain man era. The only requirement: she cannot tell anyone that she’s from the future. How did a white woman suddenly appear in the remote Rocky Mountain wilderness? Trapper Daniel Osborne’s first instinct is to protect this mysterious and unconventional woman from the harsh realities of his mountains. While he fights his growing attraction to her, he is left frustrated by her lies and secrecy. Daniel shows Aimee a side of Yellowstone she’s never experienced. She is torn between her feelings for him, and exposing a secret that will destroy everything he holds as truth. As her three months come to an end, she is faced with a dilemma: return to her own time, or stay with the man who opened her eyes to a whole new world. When the decision is made for her, both their lives will be changed forever.

Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie are joined by 5-year-old Heavenly Joy Jerkins, a pint-sized musical powerhouse and the daughter of music producer Rodney Jerkins. She sings “In Summer,” a tune from the popular movie “Frozen,” and wows the studio with her vocal and tap dancing performance (and adorableness).

I learned from a very young age that the people who are supposed to always love you and protect you may end up being the people who leave you and hurt you the most. I learned from a very young age that the people you want to trust — the people you should be able to trust without question — are not always worthy of that trust.

My heart broke for the first time at a very young age. I learned how to mend the broken pieces of my heart together, but it was never to be the same. The innocence that I once knew was gone and my ability to feel secure and love unconditionally as any young child should was overshadowed by my fear of losing more loved ones… my fear of feeling more pain. So, I built a wall around my heart. It was not a strong wall, but it gave my heart a protective barrier — one that could easily be broken down by those I felt secure enough to let in.

My walls have never been fail proof. They allowed some people in who should never have been able to inhabit my heart — even for a moment. They allowed pain and betrayal to seep in — some of which were so harmful that I never thought my heart would ever recover. These walls have also kept me from forming real relationships with people who opened their hearts to me — people with whom I could never allow myself to do the same.

With each heartbreak and betrayal, my walls become stronger and stand taller around my heart. I find myself trusting less and allowing fewer people in. I find myself hiding behind my walls, even with people who love me and people I know I should be able to trust wholeheartedly. As I grow older, I find myself being able to forgive, but never forget. If you have broken my trust, I may let you back in, but never in the same way as before.

The walls I built as protection around my heart have also become my prison. While my heart remains safe, it feels so empty, so alone. I am tired… so tired. I wish I could let people in without question. I wish for the day when I can let my guard down and show people who I truly am without worrying about whether or not I will be liked or accepted. I wish for the day when I no longer feel the need to run away or hide. I wish for the day when I can allow my heart to love fully and live without fear of pain and loss and broken trust and betrayal. I wish for the day when my heart feels whole enough and strong enough to break down the walls I built around it so long ago.

One day, my walls will come down. But, for now, my heart remains protected and imprisoned–waiting for the day when the feelings of security are able to calm the overwhelming fears and the feelings of pain and loss are no more.

But, for now, I wait.

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A fledgling vampire must use her ability to see ghosts to hunt down a savage flesh-eater. Jerusa Phoenix has always been close to death — and not just because of the congenital heart defect she&apos;s bore since birth. Jerusa can see the lingering spirits of the dead. She is bright and beautiful, but her sickness, along with her otherworldly gift, has made her an outcast. When she ventures out one night, despite the warnings of her best friend, Alicia (who happens to be a ghost), and stumbles upon a group of vampires, a battle rages between immortals over Jerusa. She is transformed into a vampire, and is surprised to find that she enjoys it. For the first time in her life she doesn&apos;t feel sick. But every light casts a shadow, and from the ashes of the battle arises a creature of incredible destructive potential—a savage flesh-eater whose very existence violates the most ancient of vampire laws. Now Jerusa must join with the other vampires and use her ghostly power to hunt down the savage beast before he can wreak havoc on the town and make others like himself. Jerusa has never been so powerful, but will she be able to find the savage before he attracts the attention of the rulers of the vampire race and bring their wrath down upon them all? Categories: Paranormal Vampire/Ghost Dark Fantasy Series, Vampire/Ghost Young Adult Series, Vampire/Ghost Urban Fantasy, Vampires/Demons Series, Blood Witch Series, Psychic Vampire Series, Vampire and Ghost Suspense, Paranormal Romance, Horror Novel, American Fiction, Supernatural Thriller, Action Adventure, Occult, Contemporary, Mythology and Folklore, Undead Zombie Book

She has a sound that is definably her own but the music has its roots in many different places and you definitely sense this is a full grown album, working on many levels.Music-News.com RSS feedJoin Group Chat!

Poor (rich) Brandy. She rode the NYC subway recently and decided to sing a song for the her audience. She obviously has never ridden the subway system in NY before, because she thought people would somehow care about her or what she was doing. Even if she can sing her a** off.

The Rolling Stones may be wrapping up their Zip Code tour next week, but Keith Richards doesn’t plan on gathering moss: The guitarist will release Crosseyed Heart, his third solo album and first since 1992’s Main Offender, on September 18th, with first single “Trouble” set for release July 17th.

Jade always knew she was different and she always knew there was a special someone waiting for her. She hadn&apos;t known he would be four hundred years old–or a vampire. Barlaam had waited for centuries for his Rajni–his destined mate. He never expected it to be some human girl who was barely twenty-one!

Single mother, and work-at-home beautician, Lauren Frazier can barely keep a roof over her head, let alone stop it from falling down around her. When handyman Caleb Hunter shows up at her door for a haircut, he&apos;s the answer to her prayers—and the attraction is instantaneous. Too bad her troublesome ten-year-old son isn&apos;t quite as thrilled to have Caleb hanging around. Old wounds have kept Caleb from returning to Redemption permanently. When he receives word of his mother&apos;s unexpected death, guilt and regret bring him home again, but will the love of a good woman keep him there? Beautiful, witty, and strong, Lauren excites Caleb like no woman ever has, but she&apos;s a package deal, and he&apos;s not sure he&apos;s prepared to take on a ready-made family.

Jeff Bridges won an Academy Award® for his role as the richly comedic, semi-tragic, romantic anti-hero, Bad Blake, in the debut feature film, Crazy Heart, from writer-director Scott Cooper. Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who's had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road, and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (two-time Golden Globe®-nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one man’s crazy heart. Crazy Heart won two Academy Awards® for Best Actor and Best Original Song.

At 80, Kramer is the subject of a glowing HBO documentary and the author of a controversial new book. After he barely survived a near- death experience last fall, many people expected the activist and author to gently exit the stage. But now recovered, and feisty as ever, he opens up to THR about everything from Lincoln’s homosexuality to his own marriage.

The need to mend broken hearts has never been greater. But what if we could simply manufacture a new one? Alex O’Brien studies the legacy of Texan surgeons and artificial hearts.

Haskell Karp was 37 when he suffered his first heart attack, and over the next ten years he suffered a variety of related problems. By 1969 even the slightest effort, like combing his hair or brushing his teeth, would bring on chest pain or extreme shortness of breath. There are four grades of heart failure under the classification determined in 1928 by the New York Heart Association; Karp’s was classified as grade IV, the most severe.

The surgeon who treated him at St Luke’s Hospital, Texas, in 1969 was an energetic man called Denton Cooley. “The man had a big dilated heart and I hoped we could reduce the size of that heart, so it could regain some of its own function,” says Cooley. But Karp did not respond well to the treatment; half of his heart was beyond repair. Cooley had expected this. He’d discussed it with Karp before the surgery: “I don’t think your heart’s going to be strong enough to tolerate this operation,” he’d told him. But Cooley had made a suggestion: if Karp’s heart were to be too weak at the end of the operation, how about taking a replacement ­– an experimental artificial heart they’d been developing in the lab.

The mechanical heart was a temporary ‘bridge’, intended to provide additional time for patients waiting for a donor heart to become available. It had an implantable part, larger than a human heart, connected to an exterior console the size of an upright piano powering it. The contraption drove compressed air through two hoses made of silicone and fabric (which entered the patient’s body below the ribcage) and into the chambers of the artificial heart: one side a left pump, the other a right, each with a balloon inside. When the chamber filled with blood, the balloon filled with air and pushed the blood out, keeping Karp alive.

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The need to mend broken hearts has never been greater. In the USA alone, around 610,000 people die of heart disease each year. A significant number of those deaths could potentially have been prevented with a heart transplant but, unfortunately, there are simply too few hearts available.

Until fairly recently, doctors were limited in how much they could do when a heart breaks. The first notable milestone took place in 1912, when the French surgeon Théodore Tuffier used his fingers to dilate a patient’s aortic valve (which helps control the flow of blood out of one side of the heart). But it was the first ‘blue baby’ operation at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, in November 1944 that symbolized to some the real dawn of heart surgery. Following a diagnosis by his colleague Helen Taussig, Alfred Blalock joined a baby girl’s aorta (the main artery leaving the heart) to her pulmonary artery (leading to the lungs), giving the blood a second chance at oxygenation and relieving the lack of oxygenated blood that gave the infant her distinct blue cast.

Yet the possibility of doing more to fix the inside of the heart remained impossible for years; opening it meant the death of the patient within minutes. What was needed was something that would stop the blood flow into the heart’s chambers, so it could be operated on, but that would keep the blood flowing around the body so the vital organs were not deprived of oxygen. That would take until 1953, when the first successful open heart surgery using a heart–lung machine took place at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia.

Even so, the only solution for many people with heart problems was – and still is – a transplant with a healthy, natural heart. In 1967 the South African surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the world’s first human heart transplant in Cape Town. It seemed like a starting gun had gone off; soon doctors all around the world were transplanting hearts.

The problem was that every single recipient died within a year of the operation. The patients’ immune systems were rejecting the foreign tissue. To overcome this, patients were given drugs to suppress their immune system. But, in a way, these early immunosuppressants were too effective: they weakened the immune system so much that the patients would eventually die of an infection. It seemed like medicine was back to square one.

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The origins of the world’s first artificial heart lie with Michael E DeBakey, Denton Cooley’s former mentor. A titan of American heart surgery, DeBakey was known as ‘the Texas Tornado’. “He was mean as hell,” says Oscar Howard ‘Bud’ Frazier, one of the many surgeons trained under the Tornado. He ran his hospital like a marine training camp, with most residents working up to 72 hours on a regular basis. Once he fired seven chiefs of department at the same time because they failed to meet his standards. But DeBakey’s exacting standards helped establish Baylor Medical School, and his funding campaigns helped kick-start research into various devices – including the artificial heart. “We would never have these devices without him,” says Frazier.

Indeed, DeBakey is widely credited for starting the field of artificial heart surgery with a 1964 grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The 1969 device used on Karp was the product of this, but at the time it had only been tested on calves, and none of the animals had survived for more than a few hours. It had never been tested in human patients. Until Haskell Karp.

The thing is, Cooley didn’t actually tell DeBakey what he was going to do. When Karp went under the knife, DeBakey was at the NHLBI in Washington DC, appealing for additional funding. Unbeknownst to him, two of his protégés had been making tweaks to the artificial heart for months. In his book 100,000 Hearts: A surgeon’s memoir, Cooley tells how he was brought the device in December 1968 by Dr Domingo Liotta, a research fellow in DeBakey’s lab. Frustrated under DeBakey’s leadership, Liotta (according to Cooley) thought his life’s work was being cast aside as DeBakey began to have doubts about the feasibility of a totally artificial heart and became more interested in developing pumps for a ‘partial’ device that would bolster the patient’s own organ.

And so the story, according to DeBakey, goes that in 1969 Denton Cooley took the device and implanted it without permission so that he could be the first to implant an artificial heart. Cooley and Liotta had altered the design of the valves and renamed the device ‘the Cooley-Liotta heart’, intending it as an emergency bridge while patients were waiting for a heart transplant.

The professional fallout was bad. DeBakey first heard about the operation from the press, who – knowing he was in Washington – had gone knocking on the door of his hotel room for comment. DeBakey called Cooley a thief. He considered it a betrayal, a childish act to claim a medical first. The feud lasted for 40 years and made the cover of Time magazine in 1970.

Time and again, Cooley has defended his behaviour. He says he was only ever driven to try the desperate move to save a life. Which he did, for a time. Haskell Karp lived longer than any of the cows DeBakey had operated on – long enough to find a donor heart. After 64 hours with the artificial heart, Cooley transplanted in a natural donor heart. But Karp died 36 hours later of pneumonia and kidney failure. Karp’s wife later sued Cooley, claiming he’d never told them that the artificial heart was experimental. Cooley successfully defended his action in court.

§

Seventy-four years old with a full head of white, floppy hair, Bud Frazier is still visibly affected by the moment he literally held the life of a young man in his hands.

It was 1965, and Frazier was in medical school. The patient was about 18 years old and had a problem with one of his heart valves. He was sent over from Italy, where no heart surgery was performed at the time. Italian patients were mainly sent to the USA, most of them treated by either DeBakey or Cooley.

During the surgery, led by DeBakey, the young man’s heart stopped and Frazier was asked to take it in his hand and massage it to keep the blood circulating. At one point the young man even regained consciousness and looked Frazier right in the eye. The problem was that the man’s heart did not start beating by itself. After a while, DeBakey told Frazier to stop: “We can’t save him,” he said. The chief resident agreed. They both told Frazier to stop. He didn’t want to. Stopping would kill the man. But it was no use; the heart wasn’t responding. Eventually, Frazier had to stop.

That was almost 60 years ago, but he can still hear the cry of the mother whose son he could not save. The death inspired an all-consuming thought in Frazier: “My god, if I can do that with my hand, we must be able to develop something we can pull off a shelf that does the same thing.”

After medical school Frazier served in the Vietnam War. He returned to Texas and Baylor Medical School in 1971, keen to work on heart pumps. But after the artificial heart incident, DeBakey had fired Liotta and got rid of everyone else in the lab. The whole pump program was dead, but it restarted at the nearby Texas Heart Institute with one Denton Cooley at the head.

By then Cooley was doing more heart surgery than anyone else in the world. Frazier made the difficult decision to leave DeBakey’s lab and finish his residency across the road. DeBakey didn’t talk to him for ten years.

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By the mid-1960s, as open-heart surgery began to take place around the world, Texas Heart Institute doctors were doing more than at all of the other hospitals in the USA combined. Houston had wealthy oilmen who wanted to do something meaningful with their money, and the hospitals were more than willing to receive their philanthropy.

Today, Houston is home to the Texas Medical Center, one of the world’s largest medical complexes. It’s located three miles south of Houston’s Midtown and resembles a financial district, with its many skyscrapers stretching into the clear blue sky and glistening in the Houston sun. It is home to 21 hospitals, 13 support organizations, eight academic and research institutions, three medical schools, two universities, a dental school and over 100,000 workers – more than at Apple or Google – in an area nearly the size of Gibraltar. And in 2014, more heart surgeries were performed here than anywhere else on the globe, many of them by Bud Frazier.

“It’s a tough business, the heart transplant business,” says Frazier. As he puts it, “you just guarantee them a premature death”, though less premature than would otherwise be the case. Half of transplant patients die within ten years, and only about 10 per cent live 20 years. Outside his office hangs the picture of a man who lived for 33 years. He was an exception.

The heart is basically a bag of muscle divided into four interior chambers. The two upper chambers are called atria, and the two lower ones are the ventricles. On the right side, deoxygenated (oxygen-poor) blood from the body and head flows into the right atrium, which pumps it down to the right ventricle. This chamber then pumps the blood out to the lungs. Meanwhile, on the left-hand side, oxygenated (oxygen-rich) blood from the lungs enters the left atrium, which pumps down into the left ventricle, and from there it passes to the body and head. Central to this system are four valves between each chamber, maintaining a one-way flow of blood by closing and preventing backflow when the heart’s chambers contract, pumping blood.

There are plenty of causes for heart failure. That’s why, like ‘cancer’, it is used as an umbrella term that is the outcome of a whole host of conditions: high blood pressure, coronary heart disease, valve damage and heart muscle weakness (cardiomyopathy), which itself may have various underlying causes. When the heart gets sick, the cells within it gradually weaken and tire, resulting in the heart getting stretched out like lace in bad underwear. It gets bigger and bigger. With the increase in size, its ability to pump decreases. Heart failure occurs when the heart is no longer able to pump blood effectively because, in essence, that’s all it is: a pump, albeit a pretty important one.

After the Cooley-Liotta heart made headlines, a host of scientists started work on their own artificial hearts. Perhaps the most influential device was kick-started by Willem Kolff, the physician-inventor who produced the first kidney dialysis machine. Kolff invited a fellow medical engineer, one Robert Jarvik, to work with him at the University of Utah, and the result was the Jarvik-7. Made up of two pumps, two air hoses and four valves, the Jarvik-7 was more than twice as big as a normal human heart and could only be implanted in the biggest patients – mainly adult men. The external console for the Jarvik-7 was a little smaller than the piano-sized console for the Liotta-Cooley heart. It had wheels, was as big and heavy (although not as tall) as a standard household refrigerator, and was normally connected to sources of compressed air, vacuum and electricity.

In 1982, Jarvik and Kolff won approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to use it in human patients and implanted it that same year. Their first patient was a 61-year-old dentist called Barney Clark, who lived on the Jarvik-7 for 112 days. A second patient was implanted in 1984 and died after 620 days. History records a total of five patients implanted with the Jarvik-7 for permanent use, all of whom died within 18 months of the surgery from infections or strokes.

In the years following its creation, the Jarvik artificial heart went through trials more financial than medical. In 1990 its manufacturer Symbion, Inc. (initially owned by Kolff and Jarvik) was closed and use of the Jarvik stopped after it could no longer keep up with FDA reporting requirements. Academia and business – in the form of the University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, and MedForte Research Foundation, a noncommercial research organization in Salt Lake City, Utah – combined to save the Jarvik technology by purchasing the patent. The device has been tweaked and renamed many times; at the time of writing, it was the world’s only FDA-approved total-replacement artificial heart device used as a bridge-to-transplant for patients.

The surgeon who holds the record for the most artificial heart surgeries, as well as the record for the most heart transplants (more than 1,100 at last count), is Bud Frazier. And the device he has implanted the most is a direct descendent of the Jarvik-7, the SynCardia. It replaces both of the patient’s own ventricles. The SynCardia is sewn to the patient’s remaining atria (the top half of the heart) and has two hoses that pierce the skin, connecting to all of the sensors, motors and electronics that power it. They are housed in a driver the size of a lunchbox, carried as a backpack outside the body – although at 13 pounds, it’s not lunchbox-light. And actually, it’s not a whole lot different from the Cooley-Liotta device from the 1960s or the Jarvik from 1982. “Yeah, it’s got some cool alarms and the mechanism, but it’s still pistons going up and down with motors driving air in and out,” says Frazier’s colleague Dr William (Billy) Cohn.

The current version of the SynCardia is heavy and cumbersome, and the hoses piercing the skin mean the risk for infection remains high. “It’s primitive,” says Cohn. “It’s a bath toy…it really looks like a bath toy.” But, he adds, “it’s brilliantly designed, because it’s so simple”, which perhaps explains why the design has remained relatively unchanged for more than 25 years. And it’s efficient enough to enable patients to return to active lifestyles – because the device can be carried in a backpack, some patients can even play tennis or ride bikes.

The main issue for Frazier and Cohn is that it has a limited lifespan. The current SynCardia model costs around US$ 100,000 and has to be replaced every three months because the internal components, which according to Cohn beat around 120,000 times a day, simply wear out. And so, like its Jarvik and Cooley-Liotta predecessors, it’s only really useful as a ‘bridge’ to keep patients alive until they can get a heart transplant.

Moreover – as Frazier tells me, Cohn nodding in the background – patients who have already had one transplant don’t do well on devices, because their whole heart fails. The only thing that will help is another totally new heart. “We have a patient now who has a pneumatic heart,” says Frazier. “He’s a young man. I did him when he was in his 20s and he rejected the heart when he was 30. We put [the SynCardia] in, and he’s had it in about three years. But it’s going to fail. We can already tell it’s failing, but we can’t transplant him either, because he’s got too many antibodies [which would reject a new heart] and we can’t get a donor [anyway].”

“It’s not working right,” he sighs. “It’s better than dying,” says Cohn.

The SynCardia is not a long-term solution to heart failure. Neither are many of the alternatives. In the early 2000s, the Massachusetts-based company Abiomed unveiled a new heart that (unlike the SynCardia) was designed to be permanent – a total replacement heart for end-stage heart failure patients who were not candidates for transplant and couldn’t be helped by any other available treatment.

The Abiomed AbioCor had an internally implanted battery, continually recharged from an external console or from a basic patient-carried external battery pack. As a result, there were no tubes or wires piercing the skin, so the chances of developing an infection were lower.

AbioCor was implanted in 15 human patients – five of those done by Frazier at the Texas Heart Institute. But still, the longest living patient went less than a year and a half before the device broke. Most patients went five to nine months. The device – which was the size of a honeydew melon – was, like its predecessors, still too big and too difficult to implant. The last AbioCor implant was in 2009. Again, it seemed like medicine was back to square one.

Yet maybe that’s no bad thing. All these versions of artificial heart devices, whether they are meant to support the heart or replace it completely, are trying to copy the functions of the heart, mimicking the natural blood flow. The SynCardia, the AbioCor, the Jarvik, even the early Cooley-Liotta heart, would fill with blood and then forcefully eject it into the body. The result is what’s called a pulsatile pump, the flow of blood going into the body like a native heart, at the average of 80 spurts a minute needed to sustain life. That’s the cause of the gentle movement you feel when you put your fingers to your wrist or your chest – your pulse, which corresponds with the beating of your heart.

Today, Frazier, Cohn and the Texas Heart Institute are working on a new wave of artificial hearts with one crucial difference: they don’t beat.

§

The Archimedes’ screw was an ancient apparatus used to raise water against gravity. As its name suggests, this third-century device is widely considered to have been invented by the Ancient Greek polymath Archimedes. Essentially, it is a screw in a hollow pipe; by placing the lower end in water and turning it, water is raised to the top. The device was used mostly for draining water out of mines or other areas of low-lying water. In 1976, during voluntary medical mission work in Egypt, cardiologist Dr Richard K Wampler saw two men using one such device to pump water up a river bank. He was inspired. Perhaps, he thought, this principle could be applied to pumping blood.

The result was the Hemopump, a device as big as a pencil eraser. When the screw inside the pump spun, blood was pumped from the heart to the rest of the body. At the time there were no motors small enough to fit inside an implantable device, so Wampler had the motor outside sit on the patient’s leg and had a spinning cable threaded up the patient’s leg artery to the pump. Naturally, the first doctor to implant this device – initially in a cow and then in a patient – was one Bud Frazier, in April 1988.

The Hemopump was the world’s first ‘continuous flow’ pump. Rapidly spinning turbines create a flow like water running through a garden hose, meaning the blood flow is continuous from moment to moment. Because of this, there is no ejection of the blood in spurts. There is no ‘heartbeat’. The patient’s own heart is still beating but the continuous flow from the device masks their pulse, meaning it is often undetectable at the wrist or neck.

It was a temporary device and could only be used while the patient was lying flat in bed. The Hemopump was not meant as a replacement for the heart; its primary function is actually to ease the heart’s burden and give it a rest. Like a wheelchair for the heart, it was intended for recuperation. Yet the Hemopump still had its problems. Because a tube had to be inserted through the femoral artery, and then moved up until the tip of the tube had passed over the aortic valve, it couldn’t be used in 20 per cent of patients because the tube was too large. In addition, at the time there were no motors powerful enough to turn the turbines as fast as they needed to go, and in early studies the cable would break too. Eventually, financial backing dried up, and by the early 1990s the Hemopump had fallen out of use.

It lives on in spirit, however. Abiomed’s newest heart prototype, Impella, uses similar technology boosted by leaps in modern engineering. It has a motor so small it sits inside the device at the end of the catheter, rather than outside of the body. The Impella is the smallest heart pump in use today – it’s not much bigger than a pencil – and as of March 2015 has been approved by the FDA for clinical use, supporting the heart for up to six hours in cardiac surgeries. Meanwhile, at the Texas Heart Institute, Frazier and Cohn – inspired by Wampler – have been working on their own Archimedes’ screw. The HeartMate II, like the Hemopump, doesn’t replace the heart but rather works like a pair of crutches for it. About the size and weight of a small avocado, the HeartMate II is suitable for a wider range of patients than the SynCardia and has, on paper, a significantly longer lifespan – up to ten years. The key is the screw technology: the spinning propeller creates less friction than pulsatile artificial heart devices, reducing wear and tear. Since its FDA approval in January 2010, close to 20,000 people – including former US Vice President Dick Cheney – have received a HeartMate II, 20 of whom have been living with the device for more than eight years. All with an almost undetectable pulse.

Animal trials for the next iteration are already underway. The HeartMate III is down to the size of a yo-yo, and the spinning part uses magnetic levitation technology – similar to the kind used in some super-fast Maglev trains in China, Germany and Japan. “Without any flexible membranes or valves, or mechanical bearings, there wouldn’t be problems with mechanical wear,” says Cohn.

On 20 January 2015, in an operation that took more than eight hours, I watched a small calf named Chicle (meaning ‘gum’ in Spanish, because she kept chewing all night) have her heart replaced by two HeartMate III devices. Chicle, along with the 75 or so calves before her, is a subject of the experiments Frazier and Cohn are performing at the Texas Heart Institute. The purpose is to see whether the body tolerates completely pulseless circulation; “to try to understand what Mother Nature will tolerate, and what she won’t,” says Cohn.

The next day I accompanied Chicle’s operating surgeon, Cohn, to see how she was doing. She was calm and still chewing, seemingly happy, and alive with no pulse.

§

Before the Heartmate III has even been tested on humans, the next generation of pulseless artificial hearts is already on its way. Called BiVACOR (a rotary ‘Biventricular Assist Device’), it also uses magnetic levitation technology. The key difference, says Cohn, is that unlike previous devices, this one is meant as a total replacement heart – one that could, at least on paper, last forever.

In early tests the BiVACOR proved extremely power efficient compared to previous artificial heart devices. Because it requires less power to run, it has the potential to run for longer periods on internal batteries, says Cohn. The current version will run on around 10 watts and have internal batteries that can power it for 2–3 hours in the event of a disconnect from the battery pack worn in a vest outside the body. The ultimate goal is to have a wireless system and to power the device through the skin using inductive coupling, the magnetic field principle used to charge electric toothbrushes. Cohn imagines a coil under the skin and one outside of the skin: no wires required, just an oscillating magnetic field doing the charging. This would also mean there wouldn’t be any breaks in the skin, thus – like the pioneering AbioCor before – reducing the risk of infection.

BiVACOR was the brainchild of Daniel Timms, an Australian engineer who first sketched out his idea some 15 years ago. A chance meeting at a Singapore conference brought him to the attention of the Texas Heart Institute researchers. When Frazier and Cohn saw his idea in September 2011, they called it the most highly evolved and brilliant plan for a total artificial heart they’d heard to date. They helped raise around US$ 2.5 million of private funding in just one week for Timms, who formed a for-profit company (also called BiVACOR) and moved his entire team to the Texas Heart Institute labs for development and testing.

Cohn says he is often chastised for his unbridled confidence in BiVACOR and his claims that it could “last forever”. He shows me a box filled with nearly a hundred 3D-printed prototypes for the BiVACOR rotor, each with a subtle difference in shape. The team is running constant experiments, he says, using 40 per cent glycerin solution to imitate blood. They have already developed rotors that work extremely well but believe they can improve the design further. Thus far, they are on course to start animal studies in late 2016 and, if successful, could start human studies as early as 2019.

I try to imagine a world full of people with no pulse. How, in such a future, would we determine if a person were alive or dead? “That is very easy,” says Cohn, bringing my existential philosophizing to a halt. “When we pinch our thumb and it goes from pink to white and immediately back to pink, this means blood is flowing through the body. You can also tell if someone is still alive if they are still breathing.”

He admits that once more of these devices are implanted into patients we will need a standard method of determining such a person’s vitals. Cohn imagines them wearing bracelets or even having tattoos to alert people to their pulseless state.

I wonder how people will take to hearts that literally don’t beat. Perhaps it will be the same as when patients were offered the first heart transplants: resistance, followed by acceptance due to overwhelming need.

“Any new procedure is going to have critics,” says Frazier’s mentor, the indefatigable Denton Cooley. “On the day that Christiaan Barnard did the first heart transplant, the critics were almost as strong, or stronger, than the proponents of [artificial] heart transplantation,” he says. “A lot of mystery goes with the heart, and its function. But most of the critics, I thought, were ignorant, uninformed or just superstitious.”

Cooley performed the first US heart transplant in May 1968. And at 94 years old he still treasures the memory of the day he implanted the first artificial heart into Haskell Karp and the “satisfaction that came from seeing that heart supporting that man’s life”.

“I had always thought that the heart has only one function, and that is to pump blood,” he says. “It’s a very simple organ in that regard.”

Sofia Vergara may be stinging the morning after the “Magic Mike XXL” premiere, after a slew of pro-life protesters swarmed the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, raging over her decision to leave her frozen embryos in limbo. Sofia and Joe Manganiello were all…

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others. Don’t disappoint me again.

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others.

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others. Don’t disappoint me again.

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others.

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others. Don’t disappoint me again.

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others.

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others. Don’t disappoint me again.

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others.

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others. Don’t disappoint me again.

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others.

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others. Don’t disappoint me again.

Miss Heart thinks she has this in the bag till I have my gimp fuck her in the ass while I beat the shit out of her feet with a cane. Then, she remembers the rules. Tsk, little MILF, I expect so much more from you than the others.

June 22 – Billboard magazine weighs in on Apple’s change of direction to pay artists during free trials of its music streaming service after pop star Taylor Swift calls out the tech giant. John Russell reports.

Bill Bailey raises the stakes during a high rolling poker game with his millionaire buddies. Since money means nothing to them he decides to bet something far more valuable, his wife, Holly Heart! This high stake poker game turns into a pussy slinging, anal invading cum fest and Holly is the star! Holly is double penetrated, fisted, double anal, double vag and TRIPPLE PENETRATED AIR TIGHT!!! She’s left in a pile of spit, sweat and cum so big that she can’t stop cumming. Even once the men leave her there a mess she just keeps cumming and cumming and cumming! Not to be missed!Hardcore Gangbang Gallery Update

Sara is a young girl raised in a family of goat farmers. Her parents homeschool their twelve children, rigorously following the precepts of the Bible. Like her sisters, Sara is taught to be a devout woman, subservient to men while keeping her emotional and physical purity intact until marriage. When Sara meets Colby, a young amateur bull rider, she is thrown into crisis, questioning the only way of life she has ever known. In a stunning portrayal of contemporary America and the insular communities that dot its landscape, Stop the Pounding Heart is an exploration of adolescence, family and social values, gender roles, and religion in the rural American South.

Choices of the Heart is the first Christian Romance novella in the Bradley Sisters series and begins the story of each sister’s search for a Godly man worthy of their heart. Each story highlights a sister’s hopes, her struggles, and her achievements as she trusts God to bring her the perfect soul mate. (This novella is approximately 90 pages) Lauren Bradley wants to find true love and goes about experimenting with online dating and attending church singles groups to find the perfect Godly man. But her efforts are met with disaster and her frustration grows as she becomes impatient waiting for God to bring the right man into her life. She decides to become an entrepreneur and purchase Emilia’s, an Italian restaurant. But her goals of buying the restaurant are thwarted by Andrew, a handsome man who also wants the restaurant for himself. Lauren is attracted to Andrew, but becomes involved with her boss, knowing he may not be the man God intended for her. Andrew has had a passion for cooking since childhood, spending lots of time in the kitchen with his mother. Now he wants to switch from being a teacher, to fulfilling his lifelong dream of owning a restaurant. But there’s one problem, he’s attracted to Lauren and has to fight her for Emilia’s. Will he fulfill his lifelong dream at the expense of driving Lauren away? Or will he sacrifice his dream and compete with her boss for the chance at true love? Other titles in the Christian romance series by Kelsey MacBride: -Desires of the Heart: Megan’s story (Available now!) -Passions of the Heart: Tiffany’s story (Available now!) -Redemption of the Heart: Katie’s story (July 2014) Don&apos;t miss out on these inspirational love stories of faith, family and romance.

Bill Bailey raises the stakes during a high rolling poker game with his millionaire buddies. Since money means nothing to them he decides to bet something far more valuable, his wife, Holly Heart! This high stake poker game turns into a pussy slinging, anal invading cum fest and Holly is the star! Holly is double penetrated, fisted, double anal, double vag and TRIPPLE PENETRATED AIR TIGHT!!! She’s left in a pile of spit, sweat and cum so big that she can’t stop cumming. Even once the men leave her there a mess she just keeps cumming and cumming and cumming! Not to be missed!Hardcore Gangbang Gallery Update

Bill Bailey raises the stakes during a high rolling poker game with his millionaire buddies. Since money means nothing to them he decides to bet something far more valuable, his wife, Holly Heart! This high stake poker game turns into a pussy slinging, anal invading cum fest and Holly is the star! Holly is double penetrated, fisted, double anal, double vag and TRIPPLE PENETRATED AIR TIGHT!!! She’s left in a pile of spit, sweat and cum so big that she can’t stop cumming. Even once the men leave her there a mess she just keeps cumming and cumming and cumming! Not to be missed!Hardcore Gangbang Gallery Update

Bill Bailey raises the stakes during a high rolling poker game with his millionaire buddies. Since money means nothing to them he decides to bet something far more valuable, his wife, Holly Heart! This high stake poker game turns into a pussy slinging, anal invading cum fest and Holly is the star! Holly is double penetrated, fisted, double anal, double vag and TRIPPLE PENETRATED AIR TIGHT!!! She’s left in a pile of spit, sweat and cum so big that she can’t stop cumming. Even once the men leave her there a mess she just keeps cumming and cumming and cumming! Not to be missed!Hardcore Gangbang Gallery Update